This paper contributes to the existing literature by examining the determinants of health financing in 177 developed and developing countries. The study introduces the variables of government effectiveness and control of corruption to capture the impact of governance quality on different mechanisms of health financing. Utilizing panel data analysis، namely system-GMM estimators، to obtain unbiased estimates، the results indicate that public and private health financing do not follow the same pattern. In addition، the GDP per capita and total government expenditure is crucial factors that affect health financing in both developed and developing countries. External aid tends to reduce public health financing، especially when it is received by a country with low governance quality. Interestingly، a high level of government effectiveness and control of corruption are found to be very influential in stimulating public health financing and helping to reduce private health financing in developed countries. However، the low amounts of health financing in developing countries are attributable to the low quality of governance، which increases out-of-pocket health financing.

The Effects of Infrastructure on the Economic Growth of the Main Sectors of the Economy of Iran’s ProvincesSayed Mansoor Khalili Araghi , Mahboobeh Kabiri Renani * , Elham NobaharPages 347-374Abstract Full Text [PDF 779KB]

Development of social and economic infrastructure in every region is of the basic requirements of economic growth. Infrastructure stimulates economic activity، enhance the productivity of private sector’s inputs، improve economic performance and thus sustainable economic development، enhancing the social welfare and better income distribution. Since the different kind of infrastructure has different effects on the sectors of the economy and then on regional development، examining the effect of infrastructure on regional economic development in various economic sectors for policymakers and planners is of particular importance. In this regard، the production function for different sectors (industry، services and agriculture) for the 30 provinces of Iran for the period 2007-2013 is estimated. Production function by the Panel Corrected Standard Errors (PCSE) method is estimated. Results show that social and economic public infrastructure has a positive impact on the economic growth of these sectors. Furthermore، the result indicates that the impacts of different kinds of infrastructure are different on various sectors of the provinces. That is the impact of social infrastructure on industrial and service sectors are more than an economic infrastructure. On the other hand the economic infrastructure has more effects on the agricultural sector compared to other infrastructure.

The consequences of the decisions and policies taken for the reconstruction of Afghanistan during the past decade، showed that there should be paid more attention to the monetary policies. There is also a question that whether monetary policies have the potential to affect the production and inflation in Afghanistan or not. The aim of this paper is to explore this effect by designing a new Keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model. The DSGE model used in this paper is taken from the new Keynesian theoretical foundations. It has been addressed to the role of households، firms، the monetary policy of Da Afghanistan Bank، as well as aids of international institutions as shocks that have been able to allocate a particular role in the Afghanistan's economy to itself، with regard to nominal rigidities and monopoly competition in this model. The results show the impulse response functions of production is negative to the external aid shock، financial shock، exchange rate shock، technology shock and external shock and is positive to the monetary shock and cost-shock. An impulse response function of inflation is positive for all shocks except for technology shock.

The paper uses Heckman model to examine the statistical importance of over 140 independent variables on the Olympic performance of all countries participating in the Summer Olympic Games from Sydney 2000 to Rio 2016. We find that countries which export more products have a higher likelihood of winning an Olympic medal than their counterparts exporting fewer products، and explain why this is the case. Statistical importance of gross domestic product per capita، labor force، average temperature and three host effects (previous host، current host، future host) is also confirmed while the role of political variables in Olympic success remains inconclusive.

An Analysis of the Local Resources Potential to Achieve Food Security in Jombang and Probolinggo Regencies East Java IndonesiaNasikh Nasikh *Pages 443-456Abstract Full Text [PDF 583KB]

This study aims at analyzing the characteristics of the food need in the area of Jombang and Probolinggo regencies as well as developing a model of local superiority-based policy to achieve the food security. This study employs descriptive qualitative approach. This study is carried out in eight months in March to October 2015. The respondent of the study is the governmental staff of Jombang and Probolinggo regencies in the level of Satuan Kerja Perangkat Daerah (SKPD، it is the name of a regional government office/Regional Working Unit) of the Agriculture Department and Bappeda of the regencies. The finding shows that the comparison between the need and supply of food in Probolinggo regency do not meet the independency as the commodities of soybean، meat، egg، and fish are limited، thus they are not sufficient to fulfill the need of the citizen in certain years. While in Jombang regency، the comparison between the need and supply of food is considered independent. It is only the soybean commodity which cannot fulfill the need of food، while other commodities (such as rice، corn، meat، egg، milk، and fish) are adequate. The implemented policy regarding to the fulfillment of the food supply to achieve the sustainable food security is to strengthen the food reserve، develop village barns، and do the food diversification.

This paper examined whether monetary policy is acyclical، procyclical or countercyclical and the implications of the interaction of such cyclicality with industrial output on real economic growth in Nigeria. After determining the time series properties of the variables and based on conventional cyclicality measures، the fully modified ordinary least square method was used to examine the impact of monetary policy cyclicality and industry output on economic growth. Granger Causality test was used to examine the causal relationship between the monetary cyclicality and output growth. The results showed that monetary policy is countercyclical on economic growth in Nigeria. Monetary policy cyclicality had significant impact on economic growth and the causality test also indicated that monetary policy has a direct effect and indirect effect through industrial output growth on real economic growth in Nigeria. The findings are consistent with similar studies in other countries، and the policy implication of the results is that despite the recent doubt، monetary policy is still a potent stabilization policy that can be used to stimulate industrial-output growth and counter the recent downturn in real economic activities in Nigeria.

Does an Economic and Political Affairs Matter in Determining the Tax Revenue of Jammu and Kashmir State (India): An Approach through VECM ModelSamir Ul-Hassan * , Biswambhara Mishra Pages 471-501Abstract Full Text [PDF 817KB]

The state of Jammu & Kashmir is one of the special category states of India، that faces a severe resource crunch on the one hand and an explosive public expenditure trend on the other hand. The inability of the state government to raise adequate resources of its own cast’s serious doubt about the tax efforts carried out by the government from time to time. Against this background، this paper tries to analyze the major long and short run determinants of tax revenue in the state of Jammu and Kashmir by applying suitable econometric methods such as VECM and by taking a broader set of variables which comprise Economic، Political and demographic sectors. The time series data of last thirty years from 1984 to 2013 has been used to identify the short and long run relationship of variables and to analyze the long term equilibrium adjustment rate by short-term variables. The result shows that all the economic variables، except for the income from of agriculture، income from industry and the unemployment rate، have positive influence on the tax revenue. Regarding political stability variables، some like political crises and law and order are significant، while others like the election cycle were found to be insignificant.

There is always uncertainty about the soundness of an economic model’s structure and parameters. Therefore، central banks normally face with uncertainty about the key economic explanatory relationships. So، policymaker should take into account the uncertainty in formulating monetary policies. The present study is aimed to examine robust optimal monetary policy under uncertainty، by a cost-push shock to the Iran’s economy. For this purpose، three new-Keynesian Phillips curve equations are used، and robust discretionary optimal monetary policy is formulated by employing Hansen and Sargent robust control approach (2002). In all three curve equations، robust discretionary monetary policy is more aggressive comparing to the rational expectations. Considering the last period inflation rate in New- Keynesian Phillips curve، the degree of aggressiveness of robust monetary policy reduces، and with reducing the weight of the last period inflation rate، more reduction in the degree of aggressiveness of monetary policy is observed. On one hand، in all three models، with increasing the weight of inflation in the loss function of monetary policymakers، robust monetary policy is still more aggressive than the monetary policy under certainty. On the other hand، the degree of aggressiveness of monetary policy decreases، while the expected loss increases.

One of the key topics and the most important tools to determine the strengths، weaknesses، opportunities and threats of each organization and company is the evaluation the performance of organizational activities that rating and ranking follows the internal and external goals. In this regard insurance companies similarly are looking for evaluation of their branches through scoring، ranking and identifying the top branches. Using scoring and then ranking branches based on performance evaluation، not only helps to identify internal and external situation and provides the possibility of planning، implementation، monitoring، control، and to improve performance، but also it will be impossible comparison of branches .Since now scoring of insurance companies branches in Iran were done under a traditional framework، that apply an on-theoretical approach and based on experimental expertise ،in this study by using GMDH neural network، f furthermore، in the process of change from a traditional framework to the systematic mechanism، we extract indicators of evaluation of the performance of the Dana Insurance company and also objective function and effective variables were determined. Moreover، results show that GMDH neural network is an appropriate alternative for traditional framework and based on this new approach، we found the ability of forecasting budget and profit.

The main purpose of this article is to analyze exchange rate behavior based on monetary fundamentals in the context of Iranian economy over the period 1990:2 to 2014:3. To do so، two monetary exchange rate models is investigated، the first by regarding interest rate differential as a monetary variable، and the second one regardless of interest rate differential as a monetary variable. Also، in both cases، effective factors on exchange rate regime shifting are examined in Time-Varying Transition Probabilities Markov Switching Model (TVTP MSM). The main results indicate that interest rate differential model is not suitable to explain exchange rate behavior in Iran. Furthermore، Markov Switching Time-Varying Transition Probabilities model in comparison with Markov Switching Fixed Transition Probabilities has a better performance in analyzing exchange rate behavior. In addition، changes in real oil price are a main determiner of probability of regime switching.

Fiscal regime is one of the main differences between petroleum contracts. Fiscal regimes in oil contracts are divided to two main categories namely Concessionary and Contractual Systems. In contractual systems، the main difference between service and production sharing contracts is the way of compensation of contractor services which could be in cash or in kind. In production sharing contracts the contractor receives a portion of produced oil. One of the main criteria to compare fiscal regimes is government and contractor takes in real values. Comparing the net present value of contractor take shows that it could have been more desirable and cost effective to use production sharing contract in Iranian Azadegan oil field instead of Buy-Back.

The research was aimed to analyze effects of Good Corporate Governance، comprising of Composition of Commissioners & Audit Committee on earnings management an Empirical Study on Indonesia Stock Exchange with Panel Data Approach. The data collection method used was documentation. The samples in this research were in Indonesia registered in Indonesia Stock Exchange. The data analysis method employed panel data regression analysis with E-Views Software. The results demonstrate that Good Corporate Governance simultaneously affects earnings management. Partial testing indicates that Good Corporate Governance variable of Composition of Commissioners has no effect on earnings management & Audit Committee has no effect on Earnings Management.